


Love isn't a Maybe Feeling

by agoodwoman



Series: Revival [12]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, X Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman





	Love isn't a Maybe Feeling

Mulder loosened the tie he had donned 19 hours ago and tossed the ash grey suit jacket onto the second bed of his motel room. To say it had been a long day was an understatement. He undid the cuffs of his starch white shirt and pulled the material from his trousers. If he burned the suit in the parking lot of the Super 8 he might be able to claim it on a T7401. Then again, he only had one other suit and he had to take that to the local dry cleaner after a coffee mishap.

He looked over to the adjoining door he had left ajar that morning to Scully’s room, noting hers was open slightly also. He still had a mickey of vodka in his mini-fridge and two juices leftover from the vending machine.

He heard the shower turn on in her bathroom and he decided that a shower would be a good idea also. Maybe don’t confront Scully when you’re smelling like the worst version of yourself.

As he rubbed the soap across his torso and let the sharp beads of water spray his face he ran through the events of that morning. He had brought her coffee to her room, they discussed their upcoming questions for their meeting with Frank Rankin and she laughed at his joke.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in a closed room with her since she left. But she looked beautiful with the sun shining through the window, she had been allowing him into her personal space and she smelled so damn good. He didn’t go in there intending to do what he did but there it was. And they had to work alongside one another for the next nineteen hours with the scent of their sex and the feeling of what they had done lingering between them.

If he had a list of most uncomfortable moments with Scully, that would sit in the top ten. Not top five but definitely top ten mostly because he didn’t know what the hell was going on with them.

His body wanted hers just as much as he did when they first found themselves finally in bed. His heart and mind never would or could need anyone else. What else were they waiting on?

Oh right. She wanted his obsession to subside again. For him to be someone else or for him to be less of the version of himself that somehow convinced Dana Scully to fall in love with him.

But she knew what he was like. She knew it and yet she still didn’t want that version of him to be the one she lived with.

Or maybe it was the version of himself that lost sight of everything and everyone around him. When he decided he should go see a doctor, after she told him he was on dangerous ground and he wouldn’t listen to reason, he went. He talked to a GP about himself and had a physical; he went to a psychiatrist for a mental health check to get cleared for duty.

Luckily, he passed and showed Scully his “fit for duty” note when they arrived back in the basement.

He also had her “get your head out of your ass” prescription in his pocket that she wrote to him a few years ago. When she picked up the worn paper she smiled briefly and told him if he needed a refill her office hours were flexible.

Upon deciding he would stick his neck out for them again, he put on sweat pants and retrieved sprite and ice from down the hall.

Mulder knocked on Scully’s door and found her sitting on her bed with her glasses on and going over autopsy notes. He appreciated seeing her like this, mid-case with her legs crossed, a laptop in front of her and her hair in a messy bun. It reminded him of the top of the world and examining one another for ice worms.

“Hey,” he said and held up two tumblers with his mixed concoction of ice, a little sprite, some juice and more than a splash of vodka. Hers was cranberry while his was orange.

“Yes please,” she said and held out her hand for her drink. She took a long sip and widened her eyes at him. “Oh that’s good.”

“I ordered a pizza,” he said, sitting down near her photos and two inches to the left of where she shouted his name 20 hours previous. Twice.

“Extra mushrooms?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You would think that almost being eaten by a giant mushroom fungus that I would find eating them abhorred but I can’t get enough,” he said and she chuffed out a laugh. Mulder nodded toward her almost empty glass. “How’s your drink, Scully?”

“Surprisingly empty,” she replied innocently.

One drink Scully made innocent yet fun jokes. Three-drink Scully was more interested in discussing her feelings. He just didn’t want her to get to four-drink Scully. Not yet. That Scully liked to cuss a bit more, lowered her inhibitions and usually woke up a little annoyed he let her drink that much but never complained regarding the extra curricular activities they partook in the night before.

Mulder got off the bed and took their glasses to get refilled. When he returned she had packed up most of her notes and was putting on an oversized cardigan that looked familiar.

“Isn’t that mine?” he pointed.

Scully buttoned up the grey cable knit sweater that she often ‘stole’ from his side of the closet on cool nights at their old home. He liked it on her better but he didn’t realize it had made its way over from the house he still inhabited to her fancy DC apartment.

Scully straightened her back and tugged on the hem of the knitted material. “Can’t we share custody?”

He handed over her drink and shook his head. “You want that but you won’t come see the fish?”

“They’re still a little mad at me for losing a molly,” she replied and took a sip of her drink. “FBI rules on fraternization between agents of different genders still frowns upon this scenario.”

“We should probably file an incident form for this morning,” he pointed out and her cheeks flushed. He sighed and rubbed his free hand across his face. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t mind what happened,” she pointed out. “I just don’t think it should keep happening.”

She said keep happening because that wasn’t the first time they had been together since she left. The first time it happened, she initiated it and Mulder felt as unfair and cruel as it was to lay with her, he couldn’t say no. He couldn’t tell himself or her that it should be all or nothing. He wanted her but he also wanted her to come home.

“Well I’ll remember that next time you show up feeling nostalgic,” he said snarkily.

She put a hand on his forearm and he tried to pull away but her grip moved to his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? For letting me fuck you this morning or for still wanting me?” he spat back.

“I can’t do all of this again,” she said and set her glass down on the bedside table. “I told you I need more time.”

“We don’t have more time,” he reminded her. “We don’t have seven years to wait and let it all fester, Scully. We just don’t have that anymore.”

“Maybe...” she started.

“Love isn’t a maybe feeling,” he interrupted. “You’re in it or you’re not. You love me or your don’t.”

“Of course I love you, Mulder!” she cried and covered her face with her hands as she fought tears from falling. She wiped the back of her thumb across her nose and shook her head again. “Of course I do.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, walking towards her and taking her hands in his.

“I can’t be second to this fight anymore,” she said. “You put your passions into everything you see around you and once, for a while, I was that focus.”

“What changed with my freedom from the FBI’s most wanted list was I had the flexibility to keep looking for answers,” he reminded her. “Scully, I am still me.”

“You’re not,” she disagreed. “You were in a dark place and it had started long before I left.”

“You used to be the light in that darkness,” he said and sat down heavily on the bed.

That was true. She always made everything better. She brought the light that fought the darkness that followed them for the last twenty years. For Mulder, it started long before that, but he found a break in the dark skies with her. It killed him to know he pushed her away. It killed him to know that she wasn’t there when he needed her.

She sat down on the bed next to him. “I said I would come back for these cases and then go back to the hospital. I can come back permanently to the FBI if that’s where you want me.”

“What about us?” he asked tenatively.

Scully took her hand in his. “Maybe there’s hope.”

 

 


End file.
